


Cracks in the Foundation

by Azpou



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Conversations, Gen, Tok'ra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-03-30
Updated: 2002-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azpou/pseuds/Azpou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hammond talks to Jack. Speculative story written before 'Frozen' aired. With thanks to the ever-lovely Denise, for identifying the flaws.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracks in the Foundation

Hammond stares down at Jack O'Neill, lying sick and feverish in bed. He can't remember how many times he's asked O'Neill to do the impossible, the unthinkable, the downright horrific. It's hard to be a general when the stakes are so damn high.

It hurts him to see the expectation on O'Neill's face.

"Doctor Fraiser hasn't been able to find a cure, Jack," he says gently, making sure to keep his hands loose and relaxed by his sides, no matter how much he wants to use them to beat away those who would take Jack O'Neill from his side.

"The Asgard?" O'Neill asks, his voice hoarse through coughing and groaning with pain.

Hammond shakes his head. "There doesn't seem to be a medical cure for this disease."

It's awful, worse than anything Hammond's ever seen. Worse than smallpox, worse than plague. A little like ebola, maybe, making the victim cough up his own guts and bleed out through his eyes. A brand new form of armageddon to inflict upon the world. Or it would be, if it was contagious. It's the only good news Hammond's heard all week.

O'Neill looks like a corpse. Breathing, but a corpse just the same. It's odd to see Jack O'Neill so sick, because he's the most vital man Hammond knows. Even so, they all know O'Neill is a dead man. Or at least, they had known it, until the Tok'ra arrived.

"No . . . medical cure?"

Hammond smiles, just a little, feeling bitter and amazed that O'Neill can be so aware, so focused, so analytical, while his body slowly turns to mush. Bitter that he'll lose an officer so valued and rare, even if he doesn't die, to a freak of nature disease that wouldn't have ever been uncovered if it hadn't been for the Goa'uld.

"The Tok'ra -" Hammond begins, and doesn't bother to finish; the way O'Neill's face turns whiter than the pasty cream he's been for the last two days is enough to convince him that O'Neill understands the proposition just fine.

"No," O'Neill says flatly, shaking his head. He's so weak the ultra-soft stuffing in the pillow hampers his movements.

"Jack," Hammond says. "They can help you."

"You can help me, too," O'Neill responds. "Don't let them do it."

"You'd rather die?"

O'Neill glares at him, sarcasm evident even through the spasm of pain that briefly creases his body, and Hammond doesn't need to hear the words to know the answer.

He wishes he could let it go like that, for O'Neill's sake if not for his own. He wishes he could let O'Neill die, let him join his son in whatever passes for the afterlife . . . but he can't. O'Neill is too valuable, too good, knows too damn much about the threat from Anubis for Hammond to countenance letting him drift away into oblivion. Not so soon after Jackson, not so soon after the attack on Earth. Protecting the planet, Hammond needs every advantage he can get, and that means keeping Jack O'Neill alive and kicking to tell what he knows, no matter the cost.

"I don't want to make this an order, Jack," he says, hoping O'Neill will cut him the slack one last time, save his conscience and volunteer for a truly dirty job.

O'Neill's eyes are angry, spitting fire that almost succeeds in hiding the fact he's dropped thirty pounds and is sweating like a pig. Almost. Until a hacking cough rips through his chest, sending flecks of blood and bile through the air, making Hammond flinch backwards in distaste in spite of their friendship.

The cough subsides, and O'Neill says defiantly: "I can't, sir."

The words are whiplash sharp, O'Neill's voice suddenly not so hoarse, not so weak, suddenly sounding less like it belongs to a dying man, saying, I'm down, but not out. Count on it.

Hammond wishes he could.

He drags himself straight, bracing himself for the onslaught of fury and betrayal that will no doubt erupt as soon as he utters the words.

"Colonel, I am ordering you to go through with the procedure."

The onslaught doesn't come. O'Neill's eyes are bleak with understanding and empathy, and Hammond realises that Jack O'Neill understands what it is to give the dirty orders, to do the dirty jobs, even if Jack O'Neill has never given an order quite like that.

All the same, something cracks. He can hear it splintering, right down the centre, like old, rotten wood being hacked apart by an axe. The battles they fight, the war they prosecute . . . bigger, more important things, and in the grand scheme of life the bond between one old general and a middle-aged colonel doesn't mean a great deal.

At least, it doesn't seem that way. If it was important, Jacob Carter wouldn't be standing at the door with a symbiote in his hands, and Jack O'Neill wouldn't be lying helpless as a sickly child on a hard and uncomfortable bed with his eyes widened in fear. Hammond wants to scream, wants to shout and to curse at whatever god happens to be listening, at the fates and the paths that have brought them all to this point . . . but he knows they never had a chance. Right from the moment Jack O'Neill and his team were captured in 1969, none of them, not Jackson, not Carter, not Teal'c or O'Neill or even Hammond himself had a hope in hell of surviving the battle unscathed.

Hammond watches blindly as Jacob steps forward and places the symbiote on O'Neill's chest, barely hears the whispered, "Oh, god," that slips from O'Neill's lips. He sees O'Neill's hand twitching and clenching reflexively, twisting the blanket around skeletal fingers, and he reaches forward and grips O'Neill's hand, hard and tight.

"It'll be okay, Jack," Jacob offers by way of reassurance.

Staring into Jack O'Neill's round, frightened eyes, Hammond hopes Jacob is right.


End file.
